Landsat 5 is the fifth satellite of the Landsat program. It was launched on March 1st, 1984, with the primary goal of providing a global archive of satellite photos. The Landsat Program is managed by ... USGS, and data from Landsat 5 is collected and distributed from the USGS's Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS).

Landsat 5 has significantly exceeded its designed life expectancy, and has a maximum transmission bandwidth of 85 Mbit/s. It was deployed at an altitude of 705.3 km, a lower orbit than Landsat 4. It takes some 16 days to scan the entire Earth. The satellite is an identical copy of Landsat 4 and was originally intended as a backup - it therefore carries the same instruments, including the Thematic Mapper and Multi-Spectral Scanner. The Multi-Spectral Scanner was powered down in 1995.